Roman Paces to Centimeters (passus to cm)

1 Roman pace equals 148 centimeters exactly.

1 Roman pace = 148 centimeters

How to convert Roman paces to centimeters

To convert Roman paces to centimeters, multiply the number of Roman paces by 148. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply centimeters by 0.006756756757 (rounded).

centimeters = Roman paces × 148

Example: 10 Roman paces = 1,480 centimeters.

Approximate value. Standards for the Roman pace varied by place and period, so this converter uses the most commonly cited value. Treat results as estimates, not exact figures.

About these units

Roman Pace (passus)

Ancient RomanHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)Approximate value

Five Roman feet, about 1.48 m. A passus was a full stride, from the lift of one foot to the same foot landing again.

Counting a pace by both feet is the key to the Roman passus. Unlike a single step, it ran from the point where one heel leaves the ground to where that same heel lands again, so it covered two steps, each called a gradus. Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa is credited with fixing it at five Roman feet, which comes to about 1.48 m, the figure used here. The exact size depends on the foot, whose surviving measures vary by a few millimeters.

A thousand paces, mille passus, formed the Roman mile of about 1.48 km, and the English word mile descends from that phrase. Milestones along roads such as the Appian Way marked distances in this unit,. The pace also sat in a chain of units: ten feet made a decempeda, and 120 feet made an actus. In imperial terms the passus is a little under five feet.

1 Roman pace = 1.48 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Pace (unit); Wikipedia: Ancient Roman units of measurement

Centimeter (cm)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One hundredth of a meter. Used for body measurements, clothing and everyday objects.

Scientists, rather than shopkeepers, gave the centimeter its place. In 1832 Carl Friedrich Gauss proposed a system of absolute units built on length, mass and time, choosing the millimeter, milligram and second. In 1873 a committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, whose members included James Clerk Maxwell and William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), recommended the centimeter, gram and second instead. That CGS system dominated physics for decades, until the metre-kilogram-second system replaced it in the mid-twentieth century and led to SI.

CGS units proved awkward for rooms and buildings, which run to hundreds of centimeters, but the centimeter itself never went away. It is still the everyday unit for height, clothing and small objects, and it appears in map scales and rainfall reports. An adult fingernail is roughly one centimeter wide, and a milliliter is defined as exactly one cubic centimeter. An inch is exactly 2.54 centimeters. The CGS system itself survives mainly in theoretical physics and astrophysics, where Gaussian units are still common.

1 centimeter = 0.01 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Centimetre-gram-second system of units; Wikipedia: Centimetre; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

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